When Steve Mullins arrived on the Arkansas Tech University campus in 1997, he had two weeks to put a game plan together against an old foe (Harding) on a neutral field (Alma High School). Nobody would have blamed him if he ran away screaming any time during that 4-7 season.

But he stayed to build a first-class NCAA Division II program that would compete for conference and national championships, while making sure student-athletes graduated with degrees and were more than football players when they left.

Sixteen seasons, 96 wins, three playoff berths and one GSC championship later, the all-time leader in victories as head football coach in ATU history has decided it is time for a new leader for the Wonder Boys.

Arkansas Tech’s Board of Trustees approved Mullins’ resignation Thursday during its regular meeting. Mullins met with the players for about 20 minutes Thursday evening. The position of head football coach will be posted, and a committee will be formed to choose the program’s 16th head football coach in its 98-year history.

“Steve Mullins will forever be remembered as the man who restored the Arkansas Tech football program and returned us to a level consistent with our storied past,” ATU president Dr. Robert C. Brown said. “He inherited a program that had only experienced six winning seasons in the previous quarter-century and almost immediately turned it into a winner.

“Beyond the many victories, coach Mullins has played an integral role in molding hundreds of young men and preparing them for life beyond football. I am pleased that Arkansas Tech will continue to benefit from his leadership qualities in the role of director of athletics.”

Mullins accumulated an overall record of 96-75 in 16 seasons as the head football coach at Arkansas Tech. He led the Wonder Boys to three NCAA Division II Playoffs appearances (1999, 2004 and 2009) and the 1999 Gulf South Conference championship.

A three-time GSC coach of the year, Mullins was NCAA Division II South Region coach of the year in 2004 and 2009. His players earned 17 All-America honors, 80 all-conference awards and 21 academic all-district recognitions.

Mullins coached eight members of the GSC All-Decade team for the 2000s, two GSC Commissioner’s Trophy recipients for outstanding male student-athlete of the year and six GSC Top Ten male student-athlete selections.

“I told them they don’t know how much I appreciated their attitudes and efforts this year, and that we were going to do the very best we could to get a great head coach and put them in a position to win a championship,” Mullins said Thursday night. “There wasn’t a single day this year I walked out there and didn’t look forward to being on the practice field with a great group of young men.

“I’ve been the head coach here for 16 years, and that’s a long time to be a college football coach. I’m very appreciative of the trustees and Dr. Brown to have the faith in me to keep me around that long. When you add up all the duties of athletic director and head football coach, doing both can really make you and gray in a hurry.”

The first landmark win of the Mullins era came on Oct. 17, 1998, when the Wonder Boys went to Conway and defeated arch rival University of Central Arkansas 16-15 — ATU’s first football victory over the Bears since 1973.

A little more than 12 months later, Arkansas Tech — one of the top 10 programs in NCAA Division II football history in terms of all-time wins (531) — became the first football program from the Natural State to win the GSC football championship outright.

The Wonder Boys recovered a fumble in overtime and defeated Southern Arkansas University for the school’s first league title in five seasons. ATU finished the 1999 season with a 9-3 overall record and advanced to the NCAA Division II Playoffs for the first time in school history.

The Wonder Boys finished 7-3 in 2000 and were the only team to defeat eventual NCAA Division II national champion Delta State University.

The 2001 Wonder Boys went 8-2, and their two losses were by a combined total of four points. Despite a 33-28 win at UCA on the final day of the regular season, ATU was denied an opportunity to compete in the NCAA Division II Playoffs.

But the Wonder Boys returned to the postseason and made more history in 2004. Arkansas Tech opened with nine consecutive wins and attained its highest ranking ever in the American Football Coaches Association NCAA Division II top 25 when it was ranked No. 6 on Nov. 2, 2004.

Tech defeated Catawba College (N.C.) 24-20 in the first round of the D-II playoffs on Nov. 13, 2004, at Buerkle Field. It marked the first time a school from Arkansas had ever hosted and the first time a school from Arkansas had ever won an D-II playoff game.

ATU finished 2004 with a 10-2 record. It was the Wonder Boys’ first season with 10 or more wins since 1971 and one of just four 10-plus win seasons in Arkansas Tech football history (1960, 1968, 1971 and 2004).

The Wonder Boys became the first program in Arkansas to make three playoff appearances when they reached the postseason again in 2009 and finished with an overall record of 9-3. Behind Harlon Hill Trophy finalist quarterback Nick Graziano, the Wonder Boys established new school records for total offense (6,329 yards), passing yardage (4,635) and scoring average (40.8 points per game).

ATU earned its second all-time win in the NCAA Division II Playoffs when it defeated the University of North Carolina Pembroke 41-13 in an opening-round game at Thone Stadium at Buerkle Field on Nov. 14, 2009.

“We had a run of about eight years of winning seasons, then we had a dip (4-7 season in 2010),” Mullins explained. “A year ago we went 2-8 and fought through the transition from the Gulf South to the Great American Conference and had to play the toughest-ranked schedule in NCAA Division II football. Obviously, we were a lot better football team this year than we were a year ago, but it wasn’t pleasing to end up 5-6.

“Most of the pressure [to resign] was internal. As a head coach, I never had a season that bad [2-8], then it goes through your mind. We came into this season and did improve, but we didn’t get to where we needed to be.”

The Wonder Boys opened 2012 with seven home games on a new synthetic turf at Thone Stadium at Buerkle Field, and a 16-13 win over visiting

Bacone College. A two-hour rain delay dampened ATU’s hopes of a second straight win when Missouri S&T won 27-19, the first of three straight losses (73-34 to HSU and 31-24 at OBU).

But the Wonder Boys answered with four straight victories — 41-20 over Northwestern Oklahoma, 45-38 over Southeastern Oklahoma for their sixth straight Homecoming win, 45-37 at Southwestern Oklahoma and 24-21 over Arkansas-Monticello, Mullins’ alma mater.

But that was the last victory ATU would enjoy in 2012. Harding beat the Wonder Boys 76-23 in Searcy, then East Central (Okla.) hit a last-second field goal to spoil Senior Day at Arkansas Tech. The Wonder Boys lost at Southern Arkansas 55-21.

“You want to find a guy who has been a winner where he’s been at, who has Division II experience,” Mullins said. “He has to care about the kids being more than just a football player. We’re going to play four years and get a degree. We need that finished product at the end — a student-athlete who has been here four or five years, who gets their degree and has that love for Arkansas Tech that we want.

“It will be a much more attractive job than it was when I came here. Things are so much better now, on campus and in our conference. That goes back to the tremendous job Dr. Brown and the Board of Trustees have done. I couldn’t be more pleased with the Great American Conference. We’ve been a true conference for a year, and now we’ve got two football teams in the national playoffs, and a third going to a bowl game. I wish one of those was Arkansas Tech, but you still have a little conference pride.”

Mullins has overseen the university’s department of athletics since April 16, 2003. He helped the university become one of the charter members of the Great American Conference when the new D-II league was formed on July 13, 2010. ATU went on to claim the inaugural Great American Conference All-Sports Trophy during the 2011-12 academic year.

Mullins said he hoped a new head football coach could be found by the end of the year, but that may be ambitious.

“The players are resilient,” Mullins said. “Right now there is uncertainty, they don’t know what’s going to happen. I just tried to reassure them that we would hire the very best coach we can bring to Arkansas Tech.

They need to be in the best shape they can, because that’s when the new coach will start his judgment.

“The last thing, the team sang the fight song to me. I can’t express what that meant to me.”